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For use of Military Personnel only. Not to 
be republished in whole or in part, without 
the consent of the War Department. 


Prepared by 

ARMY INFORMATION BRANCH, A. S. F. 
UNITED STATES ARMY 


m liBHAKY i 

C0N6KESS 

SERIAL k'.cORO 



“you will probably get a rousing welcome from the French. 



















A POCKET GUIDE TO 


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WAR AND NAVY DEPARTMENTS, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

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CONTENTS 


I 

II 


J]C33 

JfH 

Why You’re Going to France_ 


The United States Soldier in France. 

Meet the People- 

Security and Health- 

You Are a Guest of France- 

Mademoiselle_ 


III A Few Pages of French History 

Occupation_ 

Resistance_ 

Necessary Surgery_ 

A Quick Look Back_ 

Churchgoers_ 

The Machinery_ 


IV Observation Post 

The Provinces_ 

The Cafes_ 

The Farms_ 

The Regions_ 

The Workers_ 

The Tourist_ 


5 


V In Parting_ 

VI Annex: Various Aids_ 

Decimal System_ 

Language Guide_ 

Important Signs___ (Outside back 


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4 


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I 


w 

o 

{p WHY YOU’RE GOING TO FRANCE 


YOU are about to play a personal part in pushing the 
Germans out of France. Whatever part you take— 
rifleman, hospital orderly, mechanic, pilot, clerk, 
gunner, truck driver—you will be an essential factor 
in a great effort which will have two results: first, 
France will be liberated from the Nazi mob and 
the Allied armies will be that much nearer Victory, 
and second, the enemy will be deprived of coal, steel, 
manpower, machinery, food, bases, seacoast and a 
long list of other essentials which have enabled him 
to carry on the war at the expense of the French. 

The Allied offensive you are taking part in is based 
upon a hard-boiled fact. It’s this. We democracies 
aren’t just doing favors in fighting for each other 
when history gets tough. We’re all in the same boat. 
Take a look around you as you move into France 
and you’ll see what the Nazis do to a democracy 
when they can get it down by itself. 

5 


•jIV U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1944 


587341 




In “Mein Kampf’ Hitler stated that his plan was 
to destroy France first, then get England, after 
which he would have the United States cornered 
without a fight. The Allies are going to open up con¬ 
quered France, re-establish the old Allied liberties 
and destroy the Nazi regime everywhere. Hitler 
asked for it. 

You will probably get a big welcome from the' 
French. Americans are popular in France. Your 
father or uncles who were in the A.E.F. may have 
told you about that. For the loyal French right now 
the arrival of American soldiers means freedom, food 
and a second chance to fight Hitler. That second 
chance is what French patriots have been waiting 
for. 

Since June 1940 French men, women and even 
children have learned what happens to a great 
democracy when it collapses under the Nazi heel. 
For generations, France’s motto on her public build¬ 
ings has been Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite—Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity. She lost all three when the 
Nazis marched in. Behind their Maginot Line the 
French thought it couldn’t happen there. Against 
42 million French citizens Hitler launched a totali¬ 
tarian war machine composed of his 80 million sub¬ 
jects. In case you’ve heard Dr. Goebbels’ story that 


6 



7 


















































France was a pushover because she fell after six 
weeks’ Blitzkrieg, just bear those figures in mind, 
plus the fact that in the last world war France held 
out for four years as the Allied battlefield. In 1918 
French courage and endurance helped swing the 
Allied victory. 

The causes of France’s early collapse in this war 
were so complicated that even the French bitterly 
disagree as to who or what was to blame. It stands to 
reason you know less about it than they do. Our 
Sunday morning defeat at Pearl Harbor still galls us. 
France’s defeat is a raw spot which the Nazis have 
been riding every day for nearly four years. Don’t 
help them by making the French sore. 

The main fact about France’s defeat for you, an 
American soldier, is that when France fell, the big¬ 
gest democracy in Europe went down, and with it, 
whether we all realized it or not, our last defense on 
the Continent against Hitler’s crazy world conquest 
plan. As Europe’s leading Republic, France was the 
keystone of freedom on land from the Mediterranean 
to the North Sea and one of the bulkheads of our 
freedom on the Atlantic. The fall of Paris shook the 
world. 


8 


II 


THE UNITED STATES SOLDIER 
IN FRANCE 


Meet the People 

MANY of you are no doubt wondering what kind 
of people the French are. You will soon see for your¬ 
selves. Yoil will find that aside from the fact that 
they speak another (and very musical) language, 
they are very much like a lot of the people you knew 
back home. Here are a few facts about them which 
apply generally, but you must remember that each 
of them is an individual, and that Pierre Ducrot is 
as different from Paul Roucher as you are from Joe 
Jones. 

Frenchmen are much like us in one particular re¬ 
spect—they are all Frenchmen together and are as 
intensely proud of the fact as we are of being Ameri¬ 
cans. Yet we have many kinds of Americans— 
Southerners, Yankees, Hoosiers, Native Sons—to 
name a few. The speech of your buddy from Rrook- 


o 



lyn and the Mississippian’s drawl wouldn’t sound 
like the same language to most Frenchmen. It’s the 
same with France; you will find many accents and 
dialects among Bretons, Alsatians, Normans, Bas¬ 
ques, Catalans and Provencals—the Southerners of 
France. But these people are Frenchmen all, and 
proud of it. 

You will soon discover for yourself that the French 
have what might be called a national character. It is 
made up of a half dozen outstanding characteristics: 

(1) The French are mentally quick. 

(2) Rich or poor, they are economical. Ever since 
the Nazis took over and French business came to a 
standstill, thousands of French families have kept 
themselves alive on their modest savings. 

(3) The French are what they themselves call 
realistic. It’s what we call having hard common sense. 
French common sense consists of looking the facts 
straight in the eye. Because they soon saw through 
the Nazi scheme of so-called collaboration, the Nazis 
have called the French cynical. Even in defeat the 
French can’t be easily fooled. 

(4) The French of all classes have respect for the 
traditionally important values in the life of civilized 
man. They have respect for religion and for artistic 
ideas. They have an extreme respect for property, 

lo 


whether public or private. To them property repre¬ 
sents the result of work. To destroy property means 
to belittle work. Respect for work is a profound 
principle in France. The Frenchman’s woodpile is 
just as s^icred to him as the Banque de France. Above 
all, the French respect the family circle as the natural 
center of social and economic life. France is not a 
country of eleven million homes. It is a country of 
eleven million family circles. There is very little 
divorce in France. The economies of French life are 
based on the parents’ rule of working and saving for 
their children’s future. French life is based on look¬ 
ing ahead. 

(5) The French are individualists. The Frenchman 
believes in being yourself rather than the necessity 
of being like everybody else. This has its good as well 
as its bad side. It has often led the French into being 
a nation of biverse and even conflicting opinion. 
There aren’t just two ways of looking at things in 
France^yours and the other fellow’s. There are 
dozens of ways. Despite the political miseries this 
has recently brought to the French, France is still 
full of partisanships. Right now there are red hot 
topics which the French must decide for themselves. 
The future set-up in France is the Frenchman’s busi¬ 
ness and nobody else’s. His defeat has made him fear 


11 


for this future independence. The Allied invasion 
will bring up extra problems and lots of talk. Stay 
out of these local discussions, even if you have had 
French II in High School. In any French argument 
on internal French affairs, you will either be drowned 
out or find yourself involved in a first class French 
row. Quarrels between those who are fighting Hitler 
can still give him a big dangerous boost. He started 
this war on the principle of Divide and Conquer and 
his propaganda experts still believe they can make it 
work. 

(6) The French are good talkers and magnificent 
cooks—if there still is anything left to put in the pot. 
French talk and French food have contributed more 
than anything else to the French reputation for 
gayety. Learn how to speak a few essential words of 
French. There is a glossary in the back of this book 
which will give you a brief vocabulary in French, 
with pronunciations. Like most good talkers the 
French are polite. The courtesy words (“please”— 
“thank you” etc.) are the first things French chil¬ 
dren are taught. 

The French also shake hands on greeting each 
other and on saying goodbye. They are not back- 
slappers. It’s not their way. 

In the larger cities you’ll find shop-keepers who 


12 


speak English as Ho many small government func¬ 
tionaries in big towns. Many of the younger French 
generation have had a year in London or have picked 
up a smattering of English, plus slang, from the 
American movies, which were their favorites till the 
Nazis prohibited them. 

You have certainly heard of gay Paree. Yet the 
French have far less the regular habit of pleasure 
than we Americans. Even before the Nazi occupa¬ 
tion when the French were still free to have a good 
time, they had it as a special event and managed it 
thriftily. A whole French family would spend less on 
pleasure in a month than you would over a week-end. 
The French reputation for gayety was principally 
buih on the civilized French way of doing things; by 
the French people’s good taste; by their interest in 
quality, not quantity; and by the lively energy of 
their minds. The French are intelligent, have mostly 
had a sensible education, without frills, are indus¬ 
trious, shrewd and frugal. 

The French are not given to confidences, or to tell¬ 
ing how much money they make—or used to make— 
or to bragging. And they think little of such talk 
from others. The French have a remarkable capacity 
for minding their own business. Even in the days 
when they used to travel, before the Nazis shut down 


13 

















on it, the French never used to sit down in a railway 
train and tell their private affairs to a total stranger. 
They aie observant; don’t think they won’t notice 
what you do. But they have little curiosity. 

Seeurity and Health 

You probably won’t get mixed up with anything 
as glamorous as Mata Hari—the Germans have 
wised up and are sending around much less obvious 
spies these days. Don’t forget that along with the 
Nazi army of occupation came the Gestapo almost 
four years ago. You can be sure that by this time 
their system for finding out what Hitler and his 
bullies want to know is working pretty smoothly. 
The best thing for you to do is to keep any informa¬ 
tion of value to the enemy which may have come 
your way strictly to yourself. The Frenchmen with 
whom you make friends won’t be offended if you 
become silent as a stone when military subjects come 
up. Far from it. They will applaud you, since they 
have had to learn the value of silence themselves 
during the occupation. Be as friendly as you like 
with anyone who wants to share your friendship; 
just don’t discuss anything connected with the op¬ 
erations of your unit or of any other you may have 
heard about. Remember the wolf in sheep’s clothing. 


15 


Many of the so-called French prostitutes right now 
have been drawn from the dregs of other occupied 
countries and are deliberately planted under-cover 
Nazi agents. You are particularly interesting to 
them, for they might pick up something about your 
job as an American soldier which would be useful and 
valuable to the Nazi secret service. You and your 
outfit might later pay with your lives as a result of 
your having talked and the Nazi agents’ having been 
able to put two and two together. Or you might 
catch a disease and thus make one less good healthy 
soldier in our fighting force. Make no mistake about 
this. Nazi propagandists have planned it both ways. 

Almost anybody in France can get chummy with 
a special sort of hard-boiled dame who, for obvious 
business reasons, is sitting alone at a cafe table. It’s 
so easy that many of the better cafes will not permit 
women who come in alone even to sit down. Cafes 
which specialize in a prostitute clientele are usually 
clip joints. This goes double for the night dancing 
places where tarts congregate. 

While it is true that the French point of view to¬ 
ward sex is somewhat different from the American, 
it does not follow that illicit sex relations are any 
safer than in the United States. As a matter of fact 
there is a greater risk of contracting venereal diseases. 


16 


Before the war the French Government made an 
attempt to examine and license prostitutes. But 
don’t be fooled. No system of examination has ever 
made a prostitute safe. Her health card means abso¬ 
lutely hothing. 

If a girl doesn’t carry a prostitute s card, then she 
is an “irregular.” She may be picked up by the police 
for illegal soliciting and involve you in unpleasant¬ 
ness. But “regular” or “irregular” either kind can 
present you with a nasty souvenir of Paris to take 
back home. Don’t take chances with your health and 
your future. If you have been exposed to infection 
never fail to report at once for prophylactic treatment. 

Health conditions of France closely resemble those 
you know in the United States except for a somewhat 
lower sanitary standard. Water supplies in the rural 
areas are more likely to be polluted but those of the 
large cities were generally safe before the war. Milk 
is not safe to drink unless boiled. Don’t experiment 
too much with “French cooking” unless you pick a 
good place. 

Flies, lice and fleas are more common than with us, 
and less is done about them. Although they used to 
spread very little disease in times of peace, condi¬ 
tions are such today that they may be far more dan¬ 
gerous. For your own sake keep them away. 


17 


You Are a Guest of France. 

If you are billeted with a French family, you will 
be in a more personal relation than if you were in 
barracks or a hotel. Remember that the man of the 
house may be a prisoner of the Nazis, along with a 
million and one half others like him. Treat the women 
in the house the way you want the women of your 
family treated by other men while you’re away. 

The household you are billeted with will probably 
want to show how they feel toward America and 
Americans. This will entail responsibilities you’ll 
have to live up to. Mostly, the French think Ameri¬ 
cans always act square, always give the little fellow 
a helping hand and are good-natured, big-hearted 
and kind. They look up to the United States as the 
friend of the oppressed and the liberator of the en¬ 
slaved. The French trust both you and your country 
more than they do most other men and nations. 

If the French at home or in public try to show you 
any hospitality, big or little—a home cooked meal 
or a glass of wine-:-it means a lot to them. Be sure 
you thank them and show your appreciation. If 
madame invites you to a meal with the family, go 
slow. She’ll do her best to make it delicious. But 
what is on the table may be all they have and what 


18 


they must use as left-overs for tomorrow ot the rest 
of the week. 

And give her a hand around the house to help with 
the extra work you make by being there. French 
women are still talking about how your fathers 
helped out occasionally in the A.E.F. The French 
mother of a family has been carrying on without 
a husband to help with wages or the heavy work. 
She hasn’t had enough soap to keep things clean or 
thread and needles to keep clothes mended. When 
there hasn’t been enough food to go ’round among 
the children, the mothers have deprived themselves. 

Mademoiselle 

France has been represented too often in fiction 
as a frivolous nation where sly winks and coy pats on 
the rear are the accepted form of address. You’d 
better get rid of such notions right now if you are 
going to keep out of trouble. A great msuiy young 
French girls never go out without a chaperone, day 
or night. It will certainly bring trouble if you base 
your conduct on any false assumptions. 

France is full of decent women and strict women. 
Most French girls have less freedom than girls back 
home. If you get a date, don’t be surprised if her 


19 


parents want to meet you first, to size you up. French 
girls have been saying “No” to the Nazi soldiers and 
officers for years now. They expect the men in the 
American Army to act like friends and Allies. 

Should you find some girl whose charms induce 
thoughts of marriage, here are a few points to think 
over: In your present status as a soldier, marriage to 
a foreign girl has many complications. The same 
reasons that caused so many of your comrades, and 
possibly yourself, to forego marriage at home—the 
uncertainty of future movements, the hazards a 
soldier faces—apply here even more so. From time 
to time, regulations may vary with regard to mar¬ 
riage abroad, but here are some ideas as to what you 
may run into: 

During the war and for six months thereafter the 
government will not pay for the transportation of 
dependents of military personnel from a theater of 
operations to the U. S. nor from theater to theater. 

After the war, when you are shipped home for dis¬ 
charge, there will be no government transportation 
available for a wife. Nor is there likely to be any for 
a long, long time. 

In any case you can’t marry without the permis¬ 
sion of your commanding officer. 


20 


Ill 


A FEW PAGES OF FRENCH HISTORY 


Occupation 

Continental France has been directly occupied in 
part since 1940, and totally since November 1942. 
The Germans have stripped her bare. The Germans 
who occupied France were not only soldiers. They 
brought in engineers, bankers, business men, and 
specialists of every kind for the purpose not merely 
of administering but of depleting the territory. They 
levied a war indemnity purported to cover only costs 
of operation but which yielded huge sums over and 
above those costs. The Germans made an inventory 
of the possessions of the nation. Bit by bit they 
moved to Germany everything not required by them 
in France to carry on their war Only those things 
needed for military purposes and for the welfare of 
their troops and agents in France were left behind. 
They starved the French people both by requisition¬ 
ing the food supply and by creating black markets 
in which they bought up most of what was left. 


21 



Almost all French civilians are grievously under¬ 
nourished, and many have starved to death. The 
Nazis have eaten the food, drunk the wine, and 
shipped almost everything else back to Germany. 

You have no doubt known wartime shortages of 
things you are used to having, but you can have no 
idea of what it means to be faced with a hopeless 
scarcity of the commonest articles. Ration coupons 
are issued for everything, but often they prove to be 
useless little scraps of paper. To get a few withered 
vegetables, housewives stand in line for hours on end 
in the cold—only to turn away empty handed be¬ 
cause the trucks have been intercepted on their way 
to market. Bread, poor as it is, is always hard to 
come by. Little morsels of what the conquerors are 
pleased to call soap are doled out every now and 
then. When there are any at all, three cigarettes a 
day are all anyone ever gets. The towns have suffered 
most, but life in the country has been no picnic. 

A great French tradition has been justifiable pride 
in a long and illustrious military history. A large 
part of the sense of humiliating tragedy which swept 
over France when she fell in 1940 derived from the 
spectacle of the apparent ruin of her military honor. 
The German conquest was so overwhelmingly sud¬ 
den and complete after the demoralizing cynicism 


22 





“To get a few withered vegetables, housewives stand in line for 
hours only to turn away empty handed because the trucks have 
been intercepted on their way to market.'* 

\ > 

! { 


33 






















of the “Phony War” (September 1939-May 1940) 
that the Allied armies were caught with their pants 
down. The struggle soon proved hopeless, and with 
her head bowed, France capitulated. 

Though both Britain and France suffered great 
losses in the defeat, the British were able to save the 
bulk of their Army in the heroic escape at Dunkirk. 
Some citizens of France in defeat have harbored 
bitter feelings toward their British allies. Don’t you 
help anybody to dig up past history in arguments. 
This is a war to fight the Nazis, not a debating 
society. 

The French underground—composed of millions 
of French workers, patriots, college professors, 
printers, women, school children, people in all walks 
of life of the real true-hearted French—has worked 
courageously at sabotage of Nazi occupation plans. 
Nazi censorship and Nazi firing squads have tried 
to prevent your hearing about this resistance. Dr. 
Goebbels tried to stuff the world’s ears with the 
story of French collaboration with Germany. The 
only good collaboration today is the collaboration of 
the old democratic Allies. 

Remember the Frenchmen who were able to es¬ 
cape from France and rally to the Tricolor, and the 
fighting record they made for themselves in the 


24 


Tunisian Campaign and in Italy. The heroic struggle 
put up by the Fighting French at Bir Hakeim, in 
the Lybian Campaign, will live long in the annals of 
military enterprise. 

There are some million French prisoners of 
war held in Germany. A million others have been 
taken as workers to the war factories of Germany, 
and another 150,000 have been behind bars and 
barbed wire in their own country. For such activities 
as derailing German troop trains and helping Allied 
soldiers and fliers out of the country, one French¬ 
man was shot every two hours, on the average, year 
in and year out. And though Hitler’s propaganda 
experts still shout that France pulled out of this 
present war and left you to help do the fighting for 
them, the facts prove the contrary. In the six week 
Battle of France, from May 10 to June 22, 1940, 
108,000 were killed, 260,000 were wounded. 

Resistance. 

The details of fliers’ escapes, after having had to 
bail out over France, are never made public, for 
obvious reasons. But time after time, our fliers have 
come back to base after having fallen into the very 
jaws of the Nazis. For everv one of our returned 

25 



fliers, several French lives have been risked. In spite 
of the eternal anti-Allied propaganda by means of 
which the Goebbels-controlled press and radio of 
France have tried to convince the French that they 
have been betrayed by the greedy, self-seeking Allied 
powers, the Frenr^h remain our Allies. There had 
grown up in France a movement of resistance to the 
occupying forces and of aid to the Allies which has 
constituted in effect a continuation of the war by 
the French people despite the armistice of 1940. And 
this resistance has been carried out in the face of an 
enemy who desperately needed, for military pur¬ 
poses, the cooperation which he never got from any 
but a handful of profiteers and fascists among the 
French people. Although deprived of the means of 
making war in its steel and gunpowder aspects, the 
French have kept up the fight in France by sabotage, 
by the publication of underground newspapers and 
by other means, all involving grave risks for the 
petriots. 

Necessary Surgery 

Some French families have been made homeless or 
have lost relatives or both as a direct result of Allied 
bombings. Most of them have understood the tragic 
necessity for this. Some, as a result of stray bombs, 


26 


have not. But most of them agree that the tentacles 
of the Nazi octopus must be sought out and de¬ 
stroyed wherever they have entwined themselves. 
That German war installations were discovered in 
France in areas thickly populated by Frenchmen and 
their families, whom we had no wish to harm, has 
been a constant source of concern to the directors of 
Allied operations. But the plants and installations 
had to go, whatever the cost. 

A Quick Look Back 

As a country France is a small place to have pulled 
such a big weight as she has over the centuries. 
You could put nearly all of France into our two 
states of Utah and Nevada. 

But the history of France goes back for two thou¬ 
sand years. If you studied Latin at High School and 
had to wade through Julius Caesar, you may remem¬ 
ber that he opens up by saying, “All Gaul is divided 
into three parts.” The Gaul he was referring to was 
France. Even in Caesar’s time there was a settle¬ 
ment on the River Seine which became the Paris of 
today. 

For the last nine hundred years France has ranked 
as one of the world’s great civilizations. Her books, 
writers, artists, universities and industries, like her 





silk weaving, and her prosperous towns, were famous. 
The French were noted for their taste in fashions 
when Christopher Columbus was setting out to dis¬ 
cover America. Shortly after our Pilgrim Fathers 
landed on their barren Plymouth Rock in 1620, 
Louis XIV, the most celebrated French monarch, 
began his long, record-breaking reign of 72 years. 
The magnificence of his Court dazzled the world and 
he built France into the most powerful State in 
Europe. Under his sway, French became the lan¬ 
guage of international diplomacy and still is. 

The growth of democratic ideas sprang up at the 
same time both in France and in the American 
colonies, and a few years after our own American 
Revolutionary War, the ideal of freedom for the 
common man was proclaimed in Europe by the 
French Revolution. Out of that struggle came 
Napoleon, whom the French revere as a great mili¬ 
tary leader, and founder of the Code Napoleon, 
which is still in effect. Napoleon rose and fell, but 
the France of ideas lived on. 

Not only French ideas but French guns helped us 
to become a nation. Don’t forget that liberty loving 
Lafayette and his friends risked their lives and for¬ 
tunes to come to the aid of General George Washing- 


28 


ton at a moment in our opening history when nearly 
all the world was against us. In the War for Inde¬ 
pendence which our ragged army was fighting, 
every man and each bullet counted. Frenchmen 
gave us their arms and their blood when they counted 
most. Some 45,000 Frenchmen crossed the Atlantic 
to help us. They came in cramped little ships of two 
or three hundred tons requiring two months or more 
for the crossing. We had no military engineers; 
French engineers designed and built our fortifica¬ 
tions. We had little money; the French lent us over 
six million dollars and gave us over three million 
more. 

In the same fighting spirit we acted as France’s 
ally in 1917 and 1918 when our A.E.F. went into 
action. In that war, France, which is about a four¬ 
teenth of our size, lost nearly eighteen times more 
men than we did, fought twice as long and had an 
eighth of her country devastated. 

Churchgoers 

Throughout the history of France, the Church has 
filled a very real compartment in the lives of French¬ 
men. In the Middle Ages and during the Renais¬ 
sance, the superb craftsmanship and the sincere 
religious feeling of the French combined to erect 

29 



some of the most magnificent monuments to God 
ever created. You will no doubt see some of the great 
cathedrals of France. Moderated by a spirit of toler¬ 
ance learned in the bloody religious wars and perse¬ 
cutions of the past, the same spirit that built these 
matchless cathedrals exists in France today. The 
vast majority of the French are Catholics. There are 
about a million Protestants in the country. Churches, 
from the great cathedrals down to the smallest parish 
chapels, are crowded on Sundays and Saints’ Days. 
The Parish priest, “Monsier le cure”, has great in¬ 
fluence in the community, and lives among his flock 
as one of them,, taking an active interest in their 
comings and goings, and especially in the education 
of the young. It is easy to imagine how the French 
feel about the pagan ideologies of the Nazis. The 
feefing gives them yet another incentive towards the 
banishment of Hitler’s “New Order.” 

The Machinery 

It is just as well that you know something about 
the French system of conducting public business. 
Before the war, the Third Republic (1870-1940) had 
as its chief executive a president, as we do. The 
presidential term of office in France was seven years. 
The legislative body consisted of a Senate and a 


30 


''Monsieur le Maine” 



Chamber of Deputies, on the whole very similar to 
our Congress. One striking difference between the 
French political system and our own was that where 
we have several political parties, the very large 
majority of voters being included in only two of 
them, the French had a great many parties running 
the whole range of political thought from extreme 
radicalism to reactionary conservatism. This diversi- 


31 




fied party system made for frequent cabinet shake- 
ups, many cabinets lasting for a relatively short 
time. Any group retaining control for over a year was 
an exception. This sytem was an expression of the 
intense individualism of the French. 

Let’s look at the local subdivisi^s of this national 
system. France is divided into 90counties. For our 
“county” the French say “Departement”. The De- 
partements subdivide themselves into Arrondisse- 
ments, each containing Cantons, which are made up 
of groups of Communes. The men of each Commune 
(women have never voted in France) elect a Mayor 
(Maire), who is the local official with whom, your 
unit is likely to have the most contact. He will no 
doubt have much to do with the billeting arrange¬ 
ments, water supply, traffic control, and other such 
administrative details. Remember that he is quite 
an important figure in the community. He will rate 
any courtesies paid him, and will no doubt be of great 
help to your unit. 


32 


IV 


OBSERVATION POST 


The Provinces 

While you are in France you are most likely to 
be located in the provinces, so you had better have, 
some idea of what they are like. Paris can come later. 

The 35 million French who do not live in Paris will 
be quick to tell you that Paris is not France. We 
have the same idea at home when we say New York 
isn’t the United States. 

The French provinces are all of France—except 
Paris and the He de France district immediately 
surrounding it. So the French provinces and the peo¬ 
ple in them .are the major and most representative 
part of the country. The French provincials are the 
people who really keep the country going. They are 
the ordinary, average people. They make France. 
They are France. 

French provincial towns, especially if they are of 
the picturesque variety, might have more charm and 
beauty than some of our small towns, but not neces- 


33 




sarily as much entertainment. French provincial 
towns are about like what your home town was when 
your father was a boy, before movies, the radio and 
the family car changed all that. Your father wasn’t 
bored. Neither are the provincial French. The 
provinces are a good place for you to learn what the 
French really are and to show them what real 
Americans are like. 

For the past years the BBC (London) and, since 
February 1942, OWI’s “Voice of America” have been 
the chief sources of true world news for the French. 
During the most trying years, the BBC, and later our 
own programs have been sources of consolation and 
hope for delivery from Nazi tyranny. The French 
never listened to the enemy radio, and with the re¬ 
turn of Laval in April 1942 they ceased to pay any 
attention to the German controlled traitors’ radio of 
Vichy and Paris. 

The Cafes 

Public entertainment in any French town centers 
in its cafes. To the French the cafe is much more and 
much less than a bar. It’s the social center. There a 
man takes his family of an afternoon or after the 
evening meal to have a coffee, a glass of beer or wine. 


34 






‘ '^French provincial town” 


35 


















FRANCE 


Southampton 


Calaj 

Boulogne* 


RAILROAD 


ENGLISH 


MILES 


KILOMETERS 


bourg 
Le Havre 


Rouen 


) Caen 
CoutarKe 


Chartres 


Quimper 


Rennes 


Le Man? 


Orleari? 


Angers 


Tours 


La Rochelle 


Limoges 


leoux 


Toulouse 


Burgos 


ANDORRA 


Valladolid 



















Kassel 



Antwerp *V 

?RUSSELSj(^ 


ipzig \ 
Dresdw 


Roubaix 


imbrai 

IS 


Frankfurt 


PRAGUE 


Wurzburg' 


Mannheim 


Nuremburg ^ 


Nancy* 


Stuttgart 


Strasbourg 


Augsburg 


Mulhouse 


Zurich 


Innsbruck 


.LIECHTENSTEIN 


Geneva 


Ferrara 


Avignon 


GULF 

OF GENOA 


Florence 


f Nice 
lOnnes 


Marsi 


OF LIONS 





















the French do. As you’ll see by looking around you, 
the Frenchman comes there with his family. It is 
NOT a place where the French go to get drunk. Like 
all wine-drinking people, the French don’t drink to 
get drunk. Drunkeness is rare in France. 

Conversely, the only thing the French have never 
been able to say against the Nazi Army of Occupa¬ 
tion is that it was a drunken army. Don’t let them 
say it about the American Army. And don’t forget 
that the Nazi propaganda agents have already given 
the French a pretty picture of the way some Ameri¬ 
cans act on Saturday night. 

Respect Frenchmen’s belongings. If you were a 
cut-up back home, remember you are not at home 
now. The quickest way to get the local French angry 
with your outfit is for some members to rough-house 
and destroy any French property. 

The Farms 

With two million Frenchmen still prisoners in 
Germany, either in concentration camps or as fac¬ 
tory labor slaves, you probably won’t find the French 
towns, houses, roads or farms in good condition. 
Thousands of American tourists a year used to flock 
to France because its beauties and picturesque land¬ 
scape made it a show place. The French may not be 

40 


able to be proud of how things look now so don’t rub 
it in. Just remember that a sixth of their civilian 
population was driven down the roads when the 
Nazis invaded northern France. Lots of these people 
lost every stick of furniture they possessed and 
doubled up far from home with other families in dis¬ 
comfort and poverty. French factories were taken 
over by Hitler’s agents. The French have had noth¬ 
ing new to wear for over three years. Farmers have 
had to make bread out of the seed they were saying 
for the spring planting. 

Under these typical Nazi conditions no French 
farm can look its best though French farmers are 
among the best there are. They form the largest 
single class in France. About 40 percent of France’s 
population ordinarily lives on the soil and constitute? 
what is called the peasant class. Don’t think tb 3 t 
peasant means hick in French. The French peasants 
are shrewd, hard-headed, successful and conservative. 

For instance you’d be making a mistake to sup¬ 
pose that just because the French peasant still 
ploughs with horses, if there are any left, or even 
oxen, that he’s not smart. He knows what he’s doing 
and why. The French farmer has always used and 
bred a specially large, handsome farm horse called 
the Percheron. 


41 


The peasant’s wooden shoes are part of his thrift. 
France has no hot summer days and nights like ours 
in the Middle West. And the land is not deforested 
because the French have for centuries re-planted the 
trees they cut. Thus French rivers run deep the 
year ’round and the French soil is cool and moist. 
The peasant wears wooden shoes because they insu¬ 
late ids feet against the damp and mud better .than 
leather. He may look picturesque. His aim is to be 
practical. His friendliness can be important to you. 

For generations, from father to son, the French 
peasant made a good living and salted away a little 
cash. Lots of families have been farming the same 
ground for over a thousand years. Pep talks about 
labor saving devices or electrical gadgets are also not 
likely to interest the French farmer. He knows his 
own business and has prospered on it in peace. He 
uses candles or coal-oil lamps like your grandparents. 
His wife makes her hearth broom from twigs cut 
from the hedge-row. The French peasant’s farming 
theory is simple—to use everything, to waste noth¬ 
ing. His small farm pays. A hundred acres is a big 
farm in France. Land is precious. To own your own 
land is to be somebody. Small as France is, it has 
about the same variety of crops we have back home. 


42 


The Regions 

The richest farms in France are in Normandy, the 
butter, egg, cheese and grazing country. You’ve 
probably sung “When It’s Apple Blossom Time in 
Normandy.’’ The apple orchards there are a big pro¬ 
duce market item. Rouen is the largest inland Nor¬ 
man port on the River Seine. Normandy looks rather* 
like Ohio. Brittany, a projecting arm of land across 
from the south of England, is poorer land, but raises 
a big potato crop. Most of the sailors in the French 
Navy which sank its fleet at Toulon harbor are 
Brittany boys. The Bretons, as they calf themselves, 
are fisher folk. They sail their schooners once a year 
to the Newfoundland Banks for cod. Many of the 
canned sardines you used to eat at home came from 
Brittany waters. The wheat district or bread basket 
of France is south west of Paris on the plains of the 
BeauCe, iiear the grain center and cathedral market 
town of Chartres. There is a small mountainous 
center ridge across the lower middle of France, called 
the Central Massive range where sheep are raised 
and wool is carded and woven. Just north of this 
range are many health centers, established around 
thermal springs, like our White Sulphur Springs. 
The town of Vichy, seat of the French government 
under Marshal Petain, is a thermal spring town. 


43 



44 




The French Riviera is the coastal strip which 
extends from the Italian border on the east back to¬ 
ward Marseilles. The Riviera landscape and climate 
is like California. Rut the expensive California irri¬ 
gations systems which have reclaimed its dry land 
have never been installed on the Riviera. Its main 
crop has always been jasmine flowers and roses, 
raised for France’s perfume manufacturing center 
in the hill town of Grasse. For the rest, the farmers, 
many of mixed Italian blood, grow olive trees, for 
oil, raise green stuffs like peas or artichokes but can 
grow no potatoes, cattle or'heavy grain. Thus the 
people on the Riviera suffered more from hunger than 
other districts, when transportation broke down. 
Whereas adults all over France lost an average of 
forty pounds each from malnutrition under the Nazis, 
the Riviera children developed rickets from hunger. 
Few babies were born alive in this district, owing to 
the dire food conditions. Live strictly on your rations 
in the Riviera, or you may deprive others whose need 
is greater than yours. 

The main cities of the Riviera are Nice, a hand¬ 
some old resort city, and Cannes, which is modern. 
It was the chief summer resort and beach life center 
of France and was developed mostly since the last 
war. Both cities are elegant, with big hotels, sea 


45 


promenades and avenues of palms and, like the many 
small fishing ports along the coast, worth visiting on 
your leave. Behind the coast lie the lower stretches 
of the French Alps. Near the Swiss border there are 
skiing resorts. 

Just west of the Riviera district proper lies Mar¬ 
seilles, the oldest and biggest colonial port of France. 
The French Empire in North Africa is relatively new 
and has been developed only in the last fifty years, 
and Marseilles is the port of entry for supplies from 
the colonies. Though Marseilles, like the southern 
two fifths of France, was technically supposed to be 
Unoccupied France, the Nazi armistice commission 
agents managed to control all the food landed at 
the port, always the food depot of the south. The 
population of the city, forced to unload and trans¬ 
port food it was never allowed to eat, staged many 
food riots. When the Nazis occupied all of France, at 
the time of the Anglo-American liberation of North 
Africa, November 7, 1942, the Nazis were already 
taking 60 percent of the food that passed into Mar¬ 
seilles. Like many port towns Marseilles can be tough. 
Its people are southern, turbulent and hot-headed. 
The French national anthem, the Marseillaise, was 
a Revolutionary hymn that honored the city’s love 
for liberty. 


46 


We have saved to the last the region of France 
which for two reasons the Nazis were most interested 
in. This is the Channel section, from Dunkirk on 
down along the coast. It is the section directly across 
from England. It is the section from which the Nazis 
hoped to invadQ England. It is also the heavy indus¬ 
tries region of France, the second reason for the Nazi 
interest in it. Here are the coal mines which run 
over the border into Belgium, the steel centers, the 
cotton spinning mills at Roubaiz and Cambrai. To 
bolster their own production, the Nazis declared this 
whole Channel section a Forbidden Zone. French 
from other districts were not allowed to enter. The 
French living there were forced into labor gangs on 
the Nazi production line. Letters were not allowed to 
come in or go out. Dunkirk, and Dieppe, before the 
war were ports for Channel steamers plying between 
England and France. Le Havre, at the mouth of the 
River Seine, was the port for the French transatlantic 
ships sailing out to New York. 

The Workers 

The skilled French workmen, like those in the For¬ 
bidden Zone and in the automobile industry located 
in the outskirts of Paris, have suffered great humilia- 


47 


tion under the Nazis. French labor unions were well 
organized. Many of their leaders have been shot by 
the Nazis. French commerce has been completely 
crippled by the Nazi occupation because France was 
a land not of big department stores and interlocking 
organizations, but of little shops, operated by. the 
owner and often his wife. Such little shops were 
easily driven to the wall by Nazi tactics. 

You’ll notice in what is left of French commerce 
that the French woman plays a big part. Madame 
usually sits behind the cash box in the shop. Mon¬ 
sieur, her husband, does the selling. He is legally 
head of the business and of the family but she per¬ 
sonally manages the accounts and the cash and is 
the head of the home. The authority is divided, each 
one shoulders his and her share. French women have 
had a lot to do with France’s thrift and prosperity 
in the past and have helped keep the country going 
while their husbands were prisoners in Germany. 
On the farms the women have plowed and planted, 
girls and grandmothers have reaped and gleaned the 
harvest. They haven’t worn any uniforms but they 
have served their country well. In the cities they 
have run the shops alone as long as there was goods to 
sell. They have fed their children horse meat when 
other food failed. They educated them at home when 


48 


the schools broke down. French women deserve the 
right sort of appreciation. 

The Tourist 

In case you get leave, and want to enjoy being a 
tourist for a change, here are a few notes. 

There are few French towns that haven’t some¬ 
thing worth seeing. The French countryside is dotted 
with chateaux. These were the country mansions of 
the noble families in the old days. Some of them are 
regular castles with moat, drawbridge and formal 
gardens. They are often open to the public on cer¬ 
tain days, for a small visitors’ fee. 

Many provincial cities have important museums 
(buy a ticket) with a display of beautiful things 
French workers have made, maybe hundreds of years 
ago. Until the Nazis stole anything they wanted, 
most of the museums had ancient tapestries and a 
picture gallery. In the United States our galleries 
and museums are filled with art imported at great 
price from Europe. 

The churches are usually ancient and the best 
architecture the towns or villages possess. The 
French are proud of their church architecture. Don’t 
forget they are largely a Catholic people. They will 


49 


be glad to have you visit their churches like thou¬ 
sands of American tourists before you but they will 
naturally expect you to treat them as places of wor¬ 
ship, not as stations of a noisy sight-seeing tour. 
Don’t try to visit churches during service. 

Many of the largest churches such as those in the 
ancient Normandy towns of Coutance, Caen, Beau¬ 
vais, or the walled abbey of Mont St. Michel were 
built around the year 1200. They ^e Gothic in style, 
with elaborate stone carvings, traceries, the oldest 
stained glass windows still standing, and pointed 
arch construction. 

The past is still close to every Frenchman’s life 
because his family and ancestors made it. 

But don’t get the idea that the French can’t build 
something up-to-date when they choose. In Paris 
they built the EiflFel Tower long before we had our 
Empire State skyscraper in New York. For years the 
Eiffel Tower was the tallest construction man had 
ever erected and still comes close to it. 

If you get to Paris, the first thing to do is to buy 
a guide book, if there are any left after the Nazi 
tourists’ departure. Paris is in a sense the capital of 
Europe and regarded as one of the most beautiful 
and interesting cities in the world. We don’t know 
just what the war has done to Paris. These notes will 


50 


assume that there’ll still be lots to see. 

Decide what you want to see. Consult your guide¬ 
book’s map of the city. The Paris buses are plainly 
marked by letters or numbers which correspond to 
guide book indications. Be your own guide. So-called 
professional Paris guides might be crooks. 

Bus stops, every few blocks, are marked by signs 
on lamp posts, bearing the letter or number of the 
bus which passes there. First class up front, second 
class in back. The Metro or subway also has two 
classes. There are large maps of the city with the 
Metro routes and station names plainly marked, in 
each Metro station. A map of the routes, with indi¬ 
cations where to transfer under ground, is posted in 
each subway coach. 

To get an idea where you are and what Paris is 
like, start with a walk on the boulevards around the 
Place de I’Opera. To begin with, the interior of the 
Opera is well worth a look: traditional red silk, gilded 
carving and plush. You will probably want to see 
Napoleon’s tomb in the Invalides where the French 
Army Staff had its offices. The cathedral of Notre 
Dame is the most famous church in Paris. You’ve 
surely seen it in the movies and will probably want 
to see the real thing. It is on the River Seine which 
winds through Paris, with poplar trees growing on 


51 


either side, in the cobblestone landing quais below 
the street level. You can walk from Notre Dame to 
the Louvre, along the river, in half an hour. The 
Louvre is France’s greatest art gallery and used to 
be the palace of the kings. The Venus di Milo and 
the Mona Lisa have been the Louvre’s most famous 
single pieces of sculpture and portraiture, but the 
war may have caused their removal—whether by 
the French for safekeeping, or by the Nazis for their 
art lover. Field Marshal Goering, we would not know 
at the moment. A new series of modern buildings and 
an esplanade were built as approaches to the Eiffel 
Tower shortly before the war began. The Place de la 
Concorde, with fountains and an obelisk Napoleon 
brought back from his conquest of Egypt, is at the 
foot of the Champs-Elysees. This avenue slopes up 
to the Arc de Triomphe and the Tomb of the Un¬ 
known Soldier. Behind the Arc de Triomphe the 
Avenue Foch, named for the World War French 
generalissimo, leads to the Bois de Bologne, Paris’ 
largest forest and park. Up on the hill, overlooking 
Paris, is Montmartre. 

French railroad equipment will probably shock 
you. It shocks the French. The Nazis took their best 
rolling stock. Before the war the French had some of 
the fastest short distance trains in the world. 


52 


There are three classes of French passenger cars, 
first, second and third. First class ranks with our 
extra fare trains; second ranks with our parlor car 
and third class is like our ordinary day coach. If 
third class French coaches sometimes have wooden 
instead of upholstered seats, and are less comfortable 
than our day coach, remember that they are also less 
expensive. It all evens up. 

Important: You must buy your railway ticket and 
show it to the ticket-taker at the gate which leads to 
the train platforms before you get on a French train. 
More important: Don’t throw away your ticket on 
the train. It has to be punched again on the train 
and taken up by a ticket taker in the station at the 
end of your journey. He is part of the French system 
of checking to see that all passengers have bought 
tickets. If you can’t give him your ticket at your 
journey’s end, you might have to buy another. 

French hotel bills are complicated. To avoid dis¬ 
cussion afterward, make sure you know the price of 
your room before you take it. If the landlord speaks 
no English and you no French, ask him “Combien” 
(see glossary) and indicate that you want him to 
write down the price so you can be sure there is no 
misunderstanding. Try to compare prices in a couple 
of establishments before making your choice or 


53 










































55 



























starting an endless argument. 

When you get your hotel bill, there will be added 
to it a straight 10 percent (or 12 percent in bigger 
places) for Service. This automatic payment, in lieu 
of a voluntary tip to the personnel who have served 
you, is the French law. It is the way that the French 
hotel keepers and the French hotel unions decided, a 
few years before the war, was the fairest arrange¬ 
ment for both sides. Except in swank hotels, this 
service tax leis you out of having to tip down the 
line of chambermaids, waiters, etc., on leaving. Thete 
might also be, in certain districts, a very slight frac¬ 
tional “taxe de segour” or residence tax on your hotel 
bill. If so it’s also the law. If your small hotel has a 
bathtub still operating and coal for hot water, ask 
to have a bath drawn for you. It will cost a few francs 
extra. Rooms with private bath are still de luxe in 
France. Meals served in your room will have a small 
extra service charge. 

Remember that if you eat your meals in the din¬ 
ingroom and do NOT have them charged on your 
bill, but pay them on the spot, the waiter is still 
entitled to his personal 10 percent when he brings 
you his bill for the meal. If you didn’t tip him then, 
he’d get nothing. Figure it out. If there is no hotel 
diningroom, often the case in little inns, your break- 


56 


fast will be brought to your bedroom without extra 
charge. (That would be one of the services your 10 
percent service tax would be paying for.) The French 
never went in for a breakfast of eggs, toast, orange, 
juice, etc. They still take coffee with milk and bread 
and butter—if they can find it. 

When you ride in a taxi, tip 10 percent of the fare. 
A franc (maybe more now) is charged for each piece 
of luggage. This is the law. Porters at railway sta¬ 
tions also charge (or did) one franc for each valise 
they carry. You also tip ushers at movies and thea¬ 
ters for finding your seat. 

It used to be a half franc at the movies and a franc 
at the theater. All these little tips in France or the 
hotel service tax merely mean that the customer pays 
directly for service given him and not for service 
given someone else, as figured in our more costly 
American overhead. People who work on the tip sys¬ 
tem in France are given an insignificant wage and the 
tips are the rest of their salary. Tips are not just 
gouging. They are part of a low cost system. 

Don’t expect French plumbing in hotels, railway 
stations or homes to be like modern American plumb¬ 
ing. It isn’t. The French would appreciate an up-to- 
date American bathroom, with all the gadgets, but 
have never been able to afford it. After all, maybe 


57 


your grandad wasn’t brought up in one either and 
he manged to survive. Few homes or apartments 
outside of Paris have steam heat though most hotels 
do. Now they may not have the coal. 


\ 

1 ?: PARTIN? 


We are friends of the French and they are friends 
of ours. 

The Germans are our enemies and we are theirs. 
Some of the secret agents who have been spying on 
the French will no doubt remain to spy on you. Keep 
a close mouth. No bragging about anything. 

No belittling either. Be generous; it won’t hurt. 

Eat what is given you in your own unit. Don’t go 
foraging among the French. They can’t afford it. 

Boil all drinking water unless it has been approved 
by a Medical Officer. 

You are a member of the best dressed, best fed, 
best equipped liberating Army now on earth. You 
are going in among the people of a former Ally of 


58 




your country. They are still your kind of people who 
happen to speak democracy in a different language. 
Americans among Frenchmen, let us remember our 
likenesses, not our differences. The Nazi slogan for 
destroying us both was “Divide and Conquer.” Our 
American answer is “In Union There Is Strength.” 



Gendarme 


59 


AX1¥EX: 


VARIOUS AMDS 


DECIMAL SYSTEM 

In France, almost all calculations are based on the 
decimal system. We are here concerned with weights 
and measures, and money. As we have dollars and 
cents, the French have centimes and francs. 100 
cents to the dollar; 100 centimes to the franc. The 
value of the franc has never been as much as the 
value of the dollar. You will be told how many cents 
a franc is worth before you have occasion to use one. 
There is just one small complication in the French 
monetary system—the sou (say “soo”). A sou is five 
centimes—twenty sous to the franc. Don’t throw 


60 


your money away. You’ll only force prices up; and 
they’re high enough as it is. Send your extras home. 

Weights and measures in France conform to the 
metric system, which is in use throughout most of 
Europe. This is also a deciihal system: larger units 
are divisible by ten or u hundred to give smaller 
units. The following table of approximate compari¬ 
sons may prove useful: 


10 centimeters = 4 inches 

11 meters =.12 yards 

8 kilometers = 5 miles 

.50 kilometers =31 miles 
26 sq. kilometers = 10 square miles 


1 hectare 
15 grams 
5 kilos 
1 hectoliter 
1 metric ton 


One meter 


={ 


= 2]/2 acres 
= 3^ ounce 

= 11 pounds 
= 22 gallons 
= 2,205 pounds 
1,000 millimeters 'j 
100 cew/tmeters> =3' 3^' 
10 dmmeters / 


1,000 meters = 1 kilometer = ^ mile 
1 kilogram (kilo)‘=2.2 pounds 
1 liter = % quart 


You will soon get used, to dealing in terms of these 
measures, just as you will quickly gain familiarity 
with the coins and paper you will use for money. 


61 


FRENCH LANGUAGE GUIDE 


Hints on Pronunciation 

You will find all the words and phrases written 
both in French spelling and in a simplified spelling 
which you read like English. Don’t use the French 
spelling, the one given in parentheses, unless you 
have studied French before. Read the simplified spell¬ 
ing as though it were English. When you see the French 
. word for “where” spelled oo, give the oo the sound it 
has in the English words too, boot, etc. and not the 
sound it has in German or any other language you 
may happen to know. 

Each letter or combination of letters is used for the 
sound it usually stands for in English and it always 
stands for that sound. Thus, oo is always pronounced 
as it is in too, boo, boot, tooth, roost, never as anything 
else. Say these words and then pronounce the vowel 
sound by itself. That is the sound you must use every 
time you see oo in the Pronounciation column. If you 
should use some other sound—for example, the 
sound of 00 in blood —you might be misunderstood. 

Syllables that are accented, that is, pronounced 
louder than others, are written in capital letters. In 
French, unaccented syllables are not skipped over 


62 


quickly, as they are in English. The accent is gener¬ 
ally on the last syllable in the phrase. 

Hyphens are used to divide words into syllables 
to make them easier to pronounce. Curved lines 
(_) are used to show sounds pronounced together 
without any break; for example, day-z^U //meaning 
“some eggs,” kawm-B YANG meaning “how much’” 

Special Points 

AY as in may, say, play but don’t drawl it out as we do in 
English. Since it is not drawled it sounds almost like 
the e in let. Example: ray-pay-TA Y meaning 
“repeat.” 

J stands for a sound for which we have no single letter in 
English. It is the sound we have in measure, leisure, 
usual, division, casualty, azure. Example: baton- 
JOOR meaning “Good day.” 

EW is used for a sound like ee in bee made with the lips rounded 
as though about to say the oo in boot. Example: ek- 
skew-zay MWA meaning “Excuse me.” 

U or UH as in up, cut, rub, gun. Examples: nuf meaning 
**nme,” juh meaning “I.” 

U or UH as in up, cut, etc. but made with the lips rounded. 

Example: DUH meaning “two.” 

NG, N or M are used to show that certain vowels are pro¬ 
nounced through the nose, very much in the way we 
generally say huh, uh-uh, uh-huh. Examples: lahnt- 
MAHNG meaning “slowly,” juh kawm-PRAHNG 
meaning “I understand,” NAWNG meaning “no,” 
PANG meaning “bread”. 


03 


Memory Key 

AY as in day but not so drawled.' 

U or UH as in up. 

EW for the sound in hee said with the lips rounded. 

J for the sound in measure, division. 

NG, N or M for vowels pronounced through the nose. 

GREETINGS AND GENERAL PHRASES 


Hello or Good day— bawn~ 
JOOR (Bonjour) 

Good evening— bawn-SWAR 
{Bonsoir) 

How are you?— kaw-MAHN- 
T^ah-iay VOO? {Comment 
allez-vous?) 

Sir— muss- Y UH {monsieur) 
Madam — ma-DAHM {Ma¬ 
dame) 

Miss— mad-mwa-ZEL {Made¬ 
moiselle) 

Please —SEEL voo PLA Y 
{S’il vous plait) 

Excuse me— ek-skew-zay 
MWA {Excusez-moi) 

You’re welcome —eel nee ah 
pa duh KWA {II n'y a pas 
de quoi) 


Yes—WEE {Oui) 

No—iVA WNG {Non) 

Do you understand? — 
KAWM-pruh-nay VOO? 
{Comprenez-vous?) 

I understand —JUH kawm- 
PRAHNG {Je comprends) 
I dont understand —juh nuh 
KAWM-prahng PA {Je ne 
comprends pas) 

Speak slowly, please— par-lay 
LAHNT-mahng, seel voo 
PLA Y {Parlez lentement; 
s’il vous plait) 

Please repeat —RA Y-pay-tay, 
seel voo PLA Y {RSpStez s’il 
vous pla^f^ 


64 


Location 

When you need directions to get somewhere you use the 
phrase “where is” and then add the words you need. 


Where is— oo A Y {Oil est) 
the restaurant— luh RESS- 
to-RA HNG {le restaurant) 
Where is the restaurant?— oo 
A Y luh RESS - to - 
RAHNG? {OH est le res¬ 
taurant?) 

the hotel— lo-TEL {Vhotel) 
Where is the hotel?— oo A Y 
lo-TEL? {OH est Vhotel?) 


the railroad station— la 
GAR {la gare) 

Where is the railroad station? 
—00 AY la GAR? {OH est la 
gare?) 

the toilet— luh la-va-BO {le 
lavaho) 

Where is the toilet?— oo A F 
'luh la-va-BO? {OH est le 
lavaho?) 


Directions. 

The answer to your question “Where is such and such?’' 
may be “To the right’’ or “To the left’’ or “Straight.ahead,” 
so you need to know these phrases: 

To the right— ah DRW A T {H droite) 

To the left—a/t GOHSH {d gauche) 

Straight ahead— too DRW A {tout droit) 

It is sometimes useful to say “Please show me.” 

Please show me— seel voo PLA Y, mawn-tray-MWA {S'il vous 
plait, montrez-moi) 

If you are driving and ask the distance to another town it 
will be given you in kilometers, not miles. 

Kilometer— kee-lo-METR {kilomitre) 

One kilometer equals ^ of a mile. 


65 


For “twenty-one/ “thirty-one and so on, you say twenty 
and oney” “thirty and one,” but for “twenty-two,” “thirty- 
two” and so on, you just add the words for “two” and “three” 


after the words for ‘ ‘twenty a 

Twenty-one— van-t^ay UNG 
(vingt-et-un) 

Twenty-two — v ant - D U H 
(vingt-deux) 

Thirty—TEA HNT (trente) 


“thirty, as we do in English. 

Forty—KA-RAHNT (qua- 
rante) 

Fifty—5^ N-KAHNT (cin- 
quante) 

Sixty—SWAS AH NT (soix- 
ante) 


“Seventy,” “eighty,” “ninety” are said “sixty ten.” “four 
twenties” and “four twenties ten.” 


Seventy—5tt;a - sahnt - DEESS 
(soixante-dix) 

Eighty— k at-ruh - V A NG 
(quatre-vingt) 


Ninety— kat-ruh-van-DEESS 
(quatre-vingt-dix) 

One hundred— SAHNG (cent) 
One thousand— MEEL (milk) 


What’s This?” 

When you want to know the name of something you can 
say “What is it?” or “What’s this?” and point to the thing 
you mean. 

What is it?— kess kuh 5^4 Y? What’s that?— Kess kuh say 
(Qu'est-ce que c'est?) kuh SA? (qu'est-ce que c'est 

What's this?— kess kuh suh- que ga?) 

SEE? (Qu’est-ce que ceci?) 


66 


Asking for Things 

When you want something use the phrase "I want” and 
then add the name of the thing wanted. Always uSe “Please” 
—seel voo PLA Y. 


I want— jmA voo-DRA Y {Je 
voudrais) 

some cigarettes —day see- 
ga-RET (des cigarettes) 

I want some cigarettes —juh 
voo-DRA Y day see-ga-RET 
{Je voudrais des cigarettes) 


to eat— mahn-JA Y (manger) 
I want to eat —juh voo-DRA Y 
mahn-JA Y (Je voudrais 
manger) 


Here are the words for some of the things you may require. 
Each of them has the French word for “some” before it. 


bread — dew PA NG (du 
pain) 

butter — dew B UR (du 
beurre) 

soup —duh la SOOP (de la 
soupe) 

mesit—duh la V^YAHND 
(de la viande) 

lamb —dew moo-TAWNG 
(du mouton) 

veal —dew VO (du veau) 
pork —dew PA WR (duporc) 
beef —dew BUF (du boeuf) 
eggs— day-z^UH {des oeufs) 
vegetables —day lay-GE W M 
{des legumes) 


salad —duh la sa-LAD {de 
la salade) 

sugar —dew SEWKR {du 
sucre) 

salt —dew SEL {du sel) 
pepper —dew P WA VR {du 
poivre) 

milk —dew LA Y {du lait) 
drinking water —duh LO 
paw TA-bluh {de Veau po¬ 
table) 

a cup of tea —ewn TASS 
duh TAY {une tasse de 
the) 

a cup of coffee —ewn TASS 
duh ka-FAY {une tasse 
de cafe) 


67 


a glass of beer— ung VA YR 
duh YA YR {un verre 
de hikre) 

a bottle of wine— ewn hoo- 
TA Y^ee duh VA NG {une 
bouteille de vin) 
some matches— day-z^ah- 
lew- MET {des allumettes) 
the h{\\—la-dees-YAW NG 
{Vaddition) 


Money 

To find out how much things cost, you say: 

How much?— kawm-B^^YANG? (Combien?) 

The answer will be given in francs, sous, and centimes. 
Five centimes equal one sou, twenty sous or one hundred 
centimes equal one franc. 

centime— sahn-TEEM sou— S00 (sou) 

(centime) franc— FRAHNG (franc) 

Time 

When you want to know what time it is you say really 
“What hour is it?” 

What time is it?— nel UR ay-t^EEL? (Quelle heure est-il?) 

For “One o’clock” you say “It is one hour.” 

One o’clock— eel ay-t^^WN UR (II est une heure) 

For “Two o’clock” you say, “It is two hours.” 

Two o’clock— eel ay D U_H-Z^UR (II est deux heures) 

“Ten past two” is “Two hours ten.” 


potatoes— day PA WM duh 
TA YR (des pommes de 
terre) 

string beans— day ah-ree- 
ko VA YR (des haricots 
verts) 

cabbage— day SHOO (des 
choux) 

carrots— day ka-RAWT 
(des carottes) 

peas— day puh-tee PWA 
(des petits pois) 


08 


Ten past two— d^-z^UR DEESS (deux heures dix) 
“Quarter past five” is “Five hours and quarter.” 
Quarter past five —sank UR ay KAR (cinq heures et quart) 
“Half past six” is “Six hours and half.” 

Half past six— see-z^UR ay duh-MEE (six heures et demi) 


Quarter of eight is Ei 
Quarter of eight— wee-t^UR 
mains le quart) 

When you want to know 
train leaves, you say: 

At what hour —ah kel ur (d 
quelle heure) 
begins— kaw- MA HNSS 
(commence) 

the movie —luh see-nay- 
MA (le cinema) 

When does the movie start? 
—ah kel ur kaw- 
MAHNSS luh see-nay- 
MA ? (A quelle heure com¬ 
mence le cinema?) 

The days 


hours less the quarter. 
mwang luh KAR (huit heures 

when a movie starts or when a 

the train —luh TRANG (le 
train) 

leaves —PAR (part) 

When does the train leave?— 
ah kel ur par luh TRANG? 
(A quelle heure part le 
train?) 

Yesterday— ee-YA YR (hier) 
Today— o*-joord- WEE 
(aujourd’hui) 

Tomorrow— duh-MANG (de- 
main) 

the week 


Sxindsiy—dee-MAH NSH (di- 
manche) 

Monday —L UN-DEE (lundi) 
Tuesday— MAR-DEE (mar- 
di) 

Wednesday — MA YR - kruh - 
DEE (mercredi) 


Thursday— JUH-DEE (jeu- 
di) 

Friday — VAHN-druh-DEE 
(vendredi) 

Saturday—5^ M-DEE 
(samedi) 


69 


Numbers 


One —UNG {un) 
T^o—DUH (deux) 
Three—TRW A (trois) 
Four —KATR (quatre) 
F[\e—SANK (cinq) 

Six —SEESS (six) 
Seven —SET (sept) 
Eight—WEET (huit) 
Nine—iVt/F (neuf) 
Ten—DEESS (dix) 
Eleven —AWNZ (onze) 
Twelve —DOOZ (dou^e) 


Thirteen —TREZ (treize) 

Fourteen KA-TAWRZ (qua- 
torze) 

Fifteen —KANZ (quinze) 

Sixteen —SEZ (seize) 

Seventeen — DEESS - SET 
(dix-sept) 

Eighteen — DEEZ - WEET 
(dix-huit) 

Nineteen— DEEZ-NUF (dix- 
neuf) 

Twenty —VANG (vingt) 


Other Useful Phrases 
The following phrases will be useful: 


What is your name?— kaw- 
MAHNG voo-z^ah-puh-lay 
VOO? (Comment vous ap- 
pelez-vous?) 

My name is- juh ma-PEL 

— (Je m'appelle —) 

How do you say table in 
French?— kaw-MAHNG 
deet VOO table ang frahn- 
SA Y? (Comment dites-vous 
table en frangais?) 

I am an American —juh 
SWEE - Z^ah - may - ree - 
KA NG (Je suis A mericain) 


I am your friend —juh SWEE 
vawtr ah-MEE (Je suis 
votre ami) 

Please help me— ay-day MW A 
seel VOO FLA Y (Aidez-moi 
s'il vous plait) 

Where is the camp? —oo ay 
luh KAHNG? (OH est le 
camp?) 

Take me there— muh-nay-z^ 
ee MW A (Menez-y moi) 

Good-by —o ruh-VWAR (Au 
revoir) 


70 


Additions and Notes 

Thank you— mayr-SEE {mer- I want —juh VUH (je veux) 
ci) 

The expression —juh voo-DRA Y —is a polite way of saying 
“I want”; it really means “I would like.” VUH is much 
stronger and should be used only when making a strong re¬ 
quest or demand. 

Additional Expressions 


I am hungry —jay FANG 
{Tai faint) 

I am thirsty—jay SWAP 
(J'ai soif) 

Stop!—ALT/ {Haltel) 

Come here I— vuh-NA Y-Z^ee- 
SEEl (Venez icil) 

Right away —toot SWEET 
{Tout de suite) 

Come quickly!— vuh-nay 
VEETl {Venez vitel) 

Go quickly!— ah-lay VEETl 
{Allez vitel) 

Help! —0 suh-KOORl {Au se- 
coursl) 

Bring help!— ah-lay shayr- 
SHA Y dew suh-KOORl 
{Allez chercher du secours!) 

You will be rewarded —voo 
suh-RA Y ray-kawm-pahn- 
SA Y (Vous serez recom¬ 
pense) 


Where are the American sol¬ 
diers? —00 5A WNG lay 
sawl - DA - Z^ah - may - ree - 
KANG? {Oil sont les soldats 
americains?) 

Which way is north?— 
kel ko- TA Y ay luh NA WR? 
{De quel cote est le nord?) 

Which is the road to— t—kel 
ay luh shuh-MA NG poor—? 
{Quel est le chemin pour—?) 

Draw me a map —fet MW A 
ung kraw-KEE {Faites-moi 
un croquis) 

Take me to a doctor— kawn- 
dwee - zay - MWA shay - z^ 
ungdawk-TUR {Conduisez- 
moi chez un docteur) 

Take cover!— met-ay VOO-Z 
^ah la-BREE! {Mettez-vous 
d Vabril) 


71 


Gas !—gahzl (GazI) 

Danger! — dahn-JA YI {Dan- 
gerl) 

Watch out!— pruh-nay CARD I 
(Prenez garde!) 


Be careful !—fet ah-tahnss- 
YA WNGI {Faites atten¬ 
tion!) 

Wait! — ah-tahn-DAY! (At- 
tendez!) 

Good luck —hawn SHAHNSS 
{Bonne chance) 


France has been plundered by the Nazis to such 
an extent'that the people are deprived of even 
the bare necessities of life. Don’t make their 
plight more difficult by buying things that they 
so desperately need. It might cause great hard¬ 
ship and in the end bring about a condition 
that will make your own job a harder one. It is 
always a strain on our supply lines to feed 
people of liberated countries. Don’t strain 
them further. And remember too, that the 
money you put aside today will be of far 
greater value to you when you return to civil 
life. 


72 



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Important Signs 


Stop or halte —stop 
Ralentir —go slow 
Detour —detour 
A ttention —caution 
Sens unique —one way 
Sens interdit — no' thor¬ 
oughfare 

Passage a niveau — grade 
crossing 

Impasse —dead end 
Tenez votre droite —keep to 
the right 

Tournant danger eux —dan¬ 
gerous curve 


Chemin de fer —railroad 
Lignes d haute tension — 
high tension lines 
Defense d’entrer —keep out 
or no admittance 
Defense de fumer — no 
smoking 
W.C .—toilet 
Hommes —men 
Dames —women 
Entree —entrance 
Sortie —exit 















